Black Gold Beginnings
Lyne T. Barret and George Dullnig may have wished they had had better luck in the oil business.
In 1866, Barret drilled the first oil-producing well in Texas near present-day Nacogdoches. He struck black gold at 106 feet and produced about ten barrels a day for a couple of years. Oil prices rose and dropped wildly during Reconstruction, and there wasn't a big demand or reliable financial backing for drilling enterprises yet, so in 1868, Barret shut down his well and went back to his mercantile business. In 1886, George Dullnig was extremely disappointed that the bubbling liquid he struck on his Bexar County ranch was oil, not water. That well produced 48 barrels of crude a year and made Dullnig an annual profit of about $7.00 in present-day money. He decided to concentrate on his grocery business.
Then the World Changed
On January 10, 1901, Lucas #1 at Spindletop Hill erupted, spewing oil 150 feet up into the wide blue Texas sky.
100,000 barrels of pure profit spewed out daily. The sleepy town of Beaumont boomed from 10,000 to 50,000 people practically overnight. Previously cheap land tracts in the area brought million dollar price tags. The now-giant Texaco and Gulf Oil companies were established specifically to store and transport the millions of gallons of Spindletop oil. At the beginning of the 20th century, the black gold of oil rivaled the white gold of cotton as the state's most lucrative crop. The Texas Oil Boom had begun.
